Necessity
by Daelda
Summary: The huntsman realizes he has no place in the Queen's court after her coronation, especially considering his growing suspicion that she reciprocates everything he has forced back within himself. He leaves, but not as quietly as he had hoped.
1. Chapter 1

When the stained glass on the west wall came alive with the sun's rays I knew I had to duck out. If I waited much longer the tide would come up and leaving would be impossible. My eyes scanned the crowd for her one last time without reward and with some effort I pulled myself away, slipping out into the narthex and down the north passage to my temporary room.

The grey fabric shirt I'd stowed had been cleaned and left folded at the foot of the bed. Beside it were the jerkin and leather gauntlets, shined unnecessarily by the servants. Without a thought I pulled off my shirt and replaced it with these items, sliding my weapons into their places and dropping the rest of the gear into the rucksack I brought.

On foot I made my way down into the castle town, winding my way along crooked roads to the stable near the gate. At its entrance a lad asked me my name and promptly led me to a stall in the back before darting away to bring me my tack. In the stall stood Aren, a tall, mighty looking bay – the only gift I accepted from Snow White after the battle. It seemed ridiculous to take anything for my part, but she insisted and I had immediate need of a horse – not that she knew. At the time even I had been unsure what I was going to do. That wasn't the case anymore.

The stable lad returned quickly, carrying the tack. To his horror I began dressing the gelding myself, but with reassurance that I was happy to do it, he scurried off to find the maid who would bring me my provisions. When I was finished, I tied the rucksack to the back of the saddle and led the gelding into the entry aisle. The finality of it twisted dully in my stomach. _You have to do this_, I reminded myself. _It's unavoidable_. The orange and pink hues of sunset danced in the air outside, something I accepted with downtrodden resignation. It was beautiful, but it also meant the tide was coming and my time was running out.

Before long, the stable hand returned with an extra blanket and provisions which I added to the packs behind the saddle. I hadn't told the boy where I was going, but he managed enough food to get me most of the way – better than I'd hoped. I thanked him and slid a few coins into this hand for his help, then turned and led Aren down the road toward the gate.

"I don't envy you, friend" the gatekeeper called from above. "You won't have much light left by the time you reach the road! Watch out for bandits and the like – the rest of the country hasn't seen the new tidings!"

"I will," I called back, giving him an acknowledging flick of my hand. "I'll be sure to spread the word in the next town I find!"

Passing through the gate and onto the dry sand in the shadow of the wall, I let out a long breath. _This is it_.

"Wait!" came a breathless, unmistakable voice behind me. I turned on my heel and gaped at the sight of Snow White coming to a halt in the gateway. "Wait…"

It scared me seeing her like this, wild-eyed and… _afraid_. She must have read my confusion, because she dropped her hand from the wall and continued towards me, walking instead of running now – hesitating almost, but unabashed. I registered the disbelief on her face. She was barefoot and underdressed as if she'd come flying at a moment's notice, but the way the dress fell at her sides was the stuff of paintings and angels. Her hair untamed after running, and exhilaration showed on her face even in the shadows.

"Where are you going…?" she asked.

"Highness…" I began, but she stopped me.

"Don't!" Her pale eyes scoured every detail of my face with intensity. "Don't call me that."

Her presence seemed to confirm everything I'd been trying to keep from thinking. The look on her face had become incredulous, and the desperate denial in her eyes mirrored everything in my heart. I suppressed the thought and sighed heavily, looking down at my hands regretfully. "My father used to keep a hunting cabin in the mountains. It was abandoned after he died. I think it's time I restored it."

"Just like that? Am I such a burden that you would take your first chance and run?"

"You know it's not like that. I–"

"You never asked for compensation, _refused_ it even. I know." An unspoken inquiry hung in the air between us, but I chose not to enlighten her. Finally she persisted, softer this time. "After all we've been through, you have no intention of staying to… see how the pieces fall?"

"I trust you," I offered with a half-hearted shrug and a weak smile. "You'll make a fine queen. I don't need to be here to know that."

She shook her head insistently. "You won't stay for sentimentality then? I'll be all alone here."

The first part I side-stepped, being the exact reason I couldn't stay. The second part I scoffed at, "You're hardly alone, Princess. Even if I wanted to, I doubt I could be of much service to you now."

"That's irrelevant and untrue. And besides, you're skilled. Even Ravenna had need of you," she pressed.

"Aye, for hunting down her many enemies. Because she _made_ enemies. You have trackers more skilled than me in the city. I was hired for a specific task. Nothing more."

"And who will be beside me?"

"They all will. They all _are_. No one will challenge you and if they do, the guard and this entire city will come alive like a hornet's nest. You're far safer now than you ever were in my care."

"It's not of safety that I speak," she said coolly.

"Then what?!" I cried, "You think I can advise you? Look at me, highness!" I spread my arms wide, opening my frame to her as if she could see in it the dirty drunk inside. "I'm a simple man. Always was."

"Clarity and simplicity are often kin."

"Not this time," I laughed bitterly, unable to recall the last time my mind wasn't notably blurry before Ravenna summoned me. "You have Hammond for that. Hammond and all those courtiers. I hear Muir and Bith will stay too. And William will be an _invaluable_ asset."

I turned casually to pull the reins over Aren's neck and Snow stayed quiet. Even I was surprised how softly I said that last name, as if I found comfort in the acceptance that someone deserving would have her. She deserved him as much as he deserved her. Something like destiny clung to the idea of their union.

"Why William?" She asked pensively.

"Because he's everything he should be."

"And you're not?"

Halfway through tightening the cinch I stiffened. Something about her tone felt like thin ice across the surface of an inexplicably deep lake. Keeping my back to her, I simply stated, "I'm a hunter and a tracker, nothing more. I don't belong in politics."

"I don't care about the politics and neither do you," she said, moving closer. She placed a hand on my forearm that stilled my distraction and forced me to turn a little towards her, to acknowledge what she wasn't saying.

The shadow from the walls cast her in a pale light, contouring the lines of her delicate nose and deepening the color of her lips. The hair framing her face darkened to soft ebony and her eyes shown clear and bright as they searched mine. The proximity of our faces would have shocked anyone else, but the rough journey had long since suspended any physical barriers that manners required.

"You know what Bith told me?" she murmured, not waiting for a reply. "He said that even though William mourned me in the woods, you were the one who never left my side, even as I lay awaiting the pyre. And it's not the only time you proved yourself more than a companion to me." Her eyes drifted to study other details of my face, then falling to the line of my shoulders, the front of my leathers. "In that village, you came back for me among the flames and screams of the dying. You stayed behind to distract Finn in Sanctuary. And earlier when you told _me_ to run and leave you with that troll. When you joined me in battle even though your obligation was complete. Again when you came for me in that tower with Ravenna. And yet _now_ you run from my side." The question was posed in her eyes, unspoken.

I couldn't take my eyes from her and wished I never had to. No words formulated in my mind and I let them evade me. What she wanted me to confess I never could. Honor and duty bound my response as much as the elixir of her nearness. Slowly her gaze rose to meet mine, filled with something tender and probing, but her face fell when she grasped my silence, fading into something stiff and damaged as she took back her hand from my arm.

More than anything I wanted to reach out and comfort her, cup her face in my hand and promise I'd never leave her the way I did after stealing her from the burning village, but I didn't. I only watched bitterly as her expression turned incredulous and irritated with my silence.

"Snow…" was all the weary response I managed.

She heard the regret in my tone and her eyes turned cold as she took a step back. When she looked up at me again, her eyes burned with venom. "Without even a goodbye. You thought I would weather this with indifference? That I would just let you go calmly? That it wouldn't _sting_?" she said in a low, biting voice.

I cringed as she backed away further, feeling the loss viscerally. I longed to reach out and stop her with my touch, but I fought back the urge. Everything felt muddled, blurred by the clarity of her retreating form and something desperate swelled in my chest, something angry and misunderstood.

Without thinking I stepped forward and put a hand her shoulder and bring her back as she turned away, and then in an instant she was against me; her soft lips pressed against mine much harder than I'd ever imagined they could. One of my hands tangled instantly in her hair, the other pulling her hard against me by the small of her back. She knotted her fingers in the shirt under my leathers, pulling so hard it nearly tore the worn material in a violent effort to bring me closer. Almost instantly her lips parted and I took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, blazing in the vicious wildfire that rose up between us. I was angry, even furious, at her for thinking I didn't care, that I hadn't thought about her, that I wasn't doing this _all_ for her. Even more, I was angry at her for not recognizing what she was doing to me, how she was ripping me apart by the seams.

Even tearing at each other wasn't enough – it could never be enough. I wanted to pin her against a wall with the force of me and make her burn with the same intoxication that was drowning me; her smell, her taste, her feel, but in the instant we collided I had lost all sense of direction, completely absorbed in her gravity I had no idea which direction to go. Instead I tore at her, crushing her against me and enjoying the way her hands grasped for me at my back. If I gave her enough slack, it felt like she might climb me just to get closer, but I couldn't let her go, wouldn't let her go.

Nothing existed outside the feel of her torso against mine, the soft, honeyed taste of her mouth as it worked indulgences with my own, the smell of her skin and hair. I couldn't remember anything else, nothing except this, nothing except her, and I stopped trying to. I dropped my second hand to her waist and moved to kiss her high on the side of her neck, feeling her satisfying release as she tilted her head back and I worked down a little farther to the most sensitive part of her throat, kissing it lightly before tracing the same line up toward her ear and across her jaw, but hesitating to kiss her lips. She moved in before I did, a gesture that startled me for some reason. I let her kiss me and then pulled back a little to study her with astonishment.

She had kissed me back. And she had been doing it all along. Of course she had – I would never have taken those liberties if she resisted, but it wasn't just that she didn't resist. She was with me every step. She'd nearly ripped the back of my shirt even. Suddenly it didn't matter as much that our paths were different. Somewhere along the way they had collided. I saw it now in her, in every fiber of her. She was every bit as entangled with me as I was with her, and that amazed me more than anything.

She smiled at the bewildered expression I wore and her eyes fell slowly to my mouth. Her chest swelled and deflated against my own as our breathing slowed, but her face didn't show it. She was breathtaking, and even though I couldn't imagine why she was here, encircled in my arms, I wasn't willing to let her go. I shook my head slowly in amazement and her eyes moved back up to meet mine. In them was something so tender it humbled me and I closed the space to kiss her again, softer this time, and again she opened herself to me. My hand found the nape of her neck in response and tangled in her hair, more gently this time as I let myself fall deeper into her atmosphere.

Slowly an unwelcome thought crept into my mind, the memory of why I was here in the first place, memory of who I was, who she was, and why I had fought this. It could never be, and her reciprocation didn't make things better, it made them worse – much worse. I drew back suddenly, resting my forehead against hers as I fought with myself, trying to find the willpower to step away.

"What is it?" she whispered, her breath warm on my face. The delicate pronunciation of her words had always been endearing, and the sound of her voice brought back the full gravity of the situation. Detaching myself felt like an impossible feat, especially now that I knew without a doubt how she felt about me. I ran through all the scenarios in my mind looking for a loophole in my own logic as I laced my fingers in the hair on either side of her face, but found no answers. She pulled back and looked at me with concern, "What's wrong?"

I studied her face. She had always been beautiful in every way. Her heart, her hope, and her strength had somehow become lifeblood to me in the short time I knew her and yet they were also my demise. My thumb traced a wistful line across her cheekbone. I watched the flower of fear bloom in her expression and willed myself to do it.

"That should never have happened…" I said aloud, more for my own sake than hers. A mixture of confusion and horror spread across her face and she reached up to grasp my hands, but I was already drawing them away.

"What are you doing?!" She exclaimed as I turned abruptly and mounted Aren before I could pause to think.

"I have to leave." I forced out, trying to draw up the distance between us again – trying to forget the bewildered pain in her eyes and the stark emptiness I felt without her nearness.

"Why?" She stammered aimlessly, teetering on the sand the way I felt, as if balancing independently was a concept utterly forgotten in the last handful of moments. "Don't leave. Not now."

"_Especially_ now!" I declared, mad at her for denying the situation. "What do you want from me? What could come of this?! I ask you honestly, do you see _me_ on the _throne_? Because I'm not that man. I _never_ was. Look at me and tell me that you don't see it. I know you do."

She looked so stricken that I almost pitied her and regretted the harsh reality I had thrown in her face. But she did look at me, and I found the confirmation I'd been waiting for in her eyes, the truth that she hadn't confronted yet, but I had.

"I belong in that court about as much as you belong rolling with the pigs," I sighed, looking down at my hands. "And I can't stay here and watch your life unfold before me in all the grandeur you deserve; your marriage, your life, your children. And I'm not going to be the one to keep you from those things." Her staggered expression felt like gashes in my soul. "Snow, I _have_ to do this." I whispered.

From somewhere up in the battlements the gate keep called out the draw warning and my gaze met with hers. Panic and sorrowful helplessness emanated from her, but I tried to keep my mask even as I turned Aren away.


	2. Chapter 2

William glanced back across the big stone table to Snow White as the proceedings were dismissed for the day and most of the nobles filed from the room. He expected to see her sigh with relief. It was clear that she was worn thin, but she remained unchanged even after the heavy door closed with finality, leaving only the two of them, his father, Bith and Muir to contemplate the day.

The duke, who had risen to see everyone out, made his way back around the table to stand behind a chair nearer the queen. "You did very well today," he remarked. "And it _will _get easier. Times of change – even good change – bring conflict and struggle."

Snow White nodded absently and William interjected on her behalf, clearly concerned by her lackluster. "You should retire early. You've hardly caught a moment of peace since we first encountered Ravenna in the woods. I insist."

Duke Hammond nodded in agreement. "My son is right. There's nothing to be done until the messengers return and we know what we're dealing with. If it goes well, the first should return tomorrow at midday and you will be alerted, Highness. Now, if you'll excuse me I must send a request to my steward."

After he left, the room hung in silence for a moment, eventually interrupted by William, who reached out to lay his hand comfortingly over Snow's. He spoke softly. "The nobles will come into line, if that's what's troubling you. It will happen even if I have to orchestrate it myself."

She seemed not to hear his words, reacting instead to his gesture, staring at his hand as if she couldn't decide what to do with it. "I know," she said with a forced smile and a flat tone. It seemed to comfort him all the same and he withdrew his hand, reassured.

Bith shifted uncomfortably, but Muir didn't move. He barely noticed it, lost in contemplation.


	3. Chapter 3

When I opened my eyes it took me a moment to place where I was. The small cabin and the crackling fire seemed familiar, but it wasn't until my eyes found the huntsman sitting in front of the hearth that I fully remembered. It was sometime late in the night; that much I knew. He had given me his bed in exchange for a place on the floor, but it was clear that if he had slept any, it wasn't much.

I slipped out of the warm bed and padded silently to the place he sat on the floor near the hearth. Other than a quick glance of appraisal, he didn't move as I dropped down to sit beside him and for a long time neither of us said anything, comfortable with each other's presence as we watched the fire.

It was different, being around him like this. We'd spent many nights alone together, but never anywhere warm and safe. I tried not to notice the way the rough fabric of his doublet hung loosely below the line of his breeches and laid thinly across his torso, unstrung at the top. His hands toyed absently with a bit of leather.

"Why are you here?" he asked softly. "How did you even know to come here?"

For a minute I didn't answer, and he didn't press me, probably because he only half-wanted the answers. Sitting beside him, close enough to rub shoulders, was the first time since the coronation that turmoil didn't have any hold over my heart. A lot of answers ran through my mind, but the truth ebbed at me. I let out a long breath.

"When we were traveling," I began, "I couldn't afford to think of anything but the wild hope that _somehow_ I might be able to survive and even defeat her. And we _did_. After that, I realized that I knew nothing about ruling. I spent all my time fretting about how I would learn. I was so afraid I'd be bad at it that it consumed my thoughts."

He let out a half-humored breath. "_You_ couldn't be bad at it, even without proper training."

I chanced a side-long glance at him as the dull ache blossomed once again in my chest. "Outside the gate that night you took me by surprise. The things you said, I'd never given them thought, I never doubted that I'd always have you. That's why I didn't have answers then, because I never considered how complicated things were and I was in shock, especially after… what happened between us in the better parts of that eve. I was in chaos the whole night, trying to find answers and I did." I paused to look at him. "I realized that I want you beside me, no matter what it costs me. So I hired a man to track you."

He cast me a strange glance that was full of skepticism, but I didn't go on. For the first time in a long while I had time. We had time. Instead I studied his face as he turned back to the fire, absorbing the statement.

It amazed me how his presence could bolster me and how comforting the contours of his face were in the warm light that radiated from the hearth; the set of his unshaven jaw, the line of his strong nose and the way it flared defiantly at the nostrils, but more than anything the soul behind his imperfect eyes. There was something regal in his profile – something powerful and unrefined like the face of a lion – fierce and protecting and yet it held nothing of arrogance or ambition. I rocked back a little, deliberately losing any illusion of discretion I maintained.

"I wish you could see yourself the way I do." I said softly.

His brow furrowed, signaling that he disliked the route of this conversation even more. When he spoke, his voice was full of self-scorn. "You know almost nothing about me."

"I don't need the rest. I have the part that matters. In fact, I think you're tied up in the details, the events, the past so much so that you can't see who _you_ are. I do."

He scoffed, "I know who I am. Go back to where the Queen's men found me and ask anyone you want to, anyone who knows me. They'll tell you the same. You know where they found me?" He laughed sourly at the memory. "In a water trough, so far from my right mind that they almost didn't bother."

"I'm glad they did."

He looked at me obliquely with something like a mixture of wonder and irritation.

"Things would have turned out very differently without you. I'd be dead and Ravenna would be ruling, or I'd be dead and she would be immortal. You were the worst decision she ever made – and the best advantage I had."

"You insist that I'm worth something more, but I didn't do anything exceptional. Any one of your guards would do the same. Any villager with a pitchfork would have done the same," he spat.

I shook my head in disbelief. He really couldn't see it. "From that very first moment, something connected us. You thought me a criminal, and yet you sided with me against none other than Ravenna's own brother. You could have done anything with me, but you defended me with your life. Many times. Do you know how I killed Ravenna?" He cast me an inquisitive glance and I pulled the knife from it's place in my sleeve, balancing it lightly on my fingers. A dancing array of orange and yellow reflections from the fire illuminated the blade. "She disarmed me easily, but she didn't expect me to have this. Do you remember in the Dark Forest, you told me not to pull it out until I saw her soul?" I offered him the knife and he took it, examining it absently. "It saved me – saved us all."

He raised his eyes to mine and held my gaze, searching. His lips pursed slightly in thought and I found my eyes wandering down to them, aching to taste them again. He caught my distraction and sighed heavily in distress.

"You know that you need only ask and I will follow your every command like the will of God himself. I would not hesitate to give life and limb to do your bidding, and yet you ask the one thing I cannot do. It would pain me, but much worse is that it would pain you – and I won't watch myself do that to you. I _won't_."

Almost on impulse, I moved to close the gap between us – sitting close enough that I could almost feel the tease of his warm breath on my face, but he did not shrink back.

"Being near you is the most peace I've found in months," I whispered. "I'm better with you beside me and I loathe being parted from you. Beside you I found my conviction and my strength. Beside you I am brave and at ease. "And it's more than that…" I said carefully. "I love you."

A battle of emotions struggled across his expression, but I ignored it, taking one of the laces of his doublet and rolling it in my fingers.

"Please, don't fight me on this. I've loved you for a long time. When you joined me before the battle, that was the first moment I realized how _much_, but even before that… And outside the gate when you reached for me, that was when I knew I wasn't the only one."

"That should never have happened…" he whispered, his fingers coming up to brush back a bit of hair from the side of my face. When they lingered there I knew he barely meant it.

"But it did happen. And I will _never_ be sorry for it."

"That's madness."

"It doesn't matter," I assured him.

He shook his head lightly, "It _does_ matter. You have a kingdom to rule and I can't always be stealing glances at you. It would torment us both."

"This is hardly torment," I whispered with a smile. Our faces were so close and he was working at his convictions.

With a sigh of resignation he leaned his forehead against mine and cupped the side of my neck with his stray hand, brushing his thumb down it slowly. His expression was soft. "It might not be now, but what about when you get married? What of William?"

It was my turn to frown and draw away as I debated how much of the truth I could tell him without deterring him by accident. "I don't love William. I love _you_ and however I can cling to you I will. Even if I must marry for politics, even if I must choose a successor from my court and not my lineage."

His eyes searched mine. "How did you pick me of all the men who will wait on you?" He said to himself. "This is far less complicated with anyone else… Think long on this, Princess. I will return with you if you ask it of me, but think of your kingdom. It would be good for them if you found another."

"There won't be another," I said, realizing that it sounded like empty reassurance. "Muir realized…"

"Realized what?"

"Don't you wonder how I came back to you all at the Duke's castle?" I paused, but his silence urged me on. "Muir didn't realize it until nearly a week after you left. It was old magic – the most powerful there is. Bith told me once that you stayed by me even in death, even after everyone else walked away and I waited for the pyre far into the evening. But he also said that you did leave, just before I awakened."

"Aye, I barely got to my tent before the ruckus brought me back. And there you were, like an angel shining in the darkness."

"Before you left, you gave me a farewell, did you not?"

"You remember?"

"No, not at all, but Muir thinks you did it then."

He scoffed in surprise, "Muir thinks I worked magic on you?"

"Not intentionally," I smiled. Suddenly it felt impersonal to delve into that moment without his consent. Leaning forward a little for the comfort of his nearness I asked, "If you don't mind, what did you say to me then?"

He looked aside to where his fingertips still traced in slow and steady pattern at the base of my neck. "I don't remember it all," he said wistfully. "But I told you about me – about my past, my wife." His eyes darted up to me. "She was so much like you. You have the same light, the same beauty in your heart. But I failed her and I failed you too. I didn't recognize how much I had come to care for you until I learned who you were. Of all people, the princess…"

"That's why you left me there?"

"Aye, but that didn't last. I should have left you many times, but I couldn't. Not until that night could I let you go. And even then it was because I'd failed you the same way."

"You didn't fail me," I whispered. "There was nothing you could have done."

"I loved you, and I should have been there."

I wanted to reach up and touch his face, to comfort him any way I could. "You came in time. She would have had my heart if you hadn't come. You did save me from that."

"It wasn't enough though, was it?"

"_You_ were enough." I sighed, trying to think of how to begin. "My mother used to tell me stories when I was young, stories about a magic that could conquer any army, a magic that could break any spell. It had been so long that it passed into legend and myth, but it has been here all along. You showed it. You kissed me then," I murmured, looking up to find his gaze, "didn't you?"

His eyes filled with something tender and longing as he looked at me, my eyes falling helplessly to his lips again.

"Aye"

"True love's kiss can break any spell…" I murmured. "_You_ were enough."


End file.
